A Difficult Start For New Artists In The Art Community

To make the top income levels for artists within the art community, one needs to seek employment with the right institution.

If you are a new artist within the art community what I will say at first may sound horrible. Yet you deserve to know the reality that you are stepping into.

This is the beginning of your journey within your artistic life.

Having said this, you need to know that there will be few people that will come to help you. In fact more will try to copy, steal, or you will be held back.

Know that those events and people are minor issues. Actually these aspects are more readily overcome than other hurdles.

A complicated hurdle for artists can be in how to define their work. You must compete in a world separating your art from products.

With this you must also resist the temptation to create products instead of art. This is called trend chasing and it is a dangerous path to be on.

Products do not help your art portfolio. Likewise it is impossible to build any benefit from public relations with products alone.

I will attempt to highlight some of the more critical dangers and harsh realities within the art community. With this I hope you can at least more easily see the world that surrounds you.

The Harsh Reality For Artists Today

Art institutions themselves are failing. This is a major problem for us. How and why?

If you trust these art institutions alone you will find that you will fail at making a living as an artist.

Galleries and guilds historically would often do the heavy lifting of marketing. Today artists must learn how to market art more than ever before.

There is a disconnect in preparing students or artists for marketing, or designing their personal art platform.

Too many institutions still remain within old world models. If your goal is to work for a corporation there is still much help to be found.

If you wish to promote your work in your own right things have become complex. This is not a bad thing. You simply need to see where opportunity can be found.

An example of this can be seen with higher learning. SCAD is great for preparing artists for jobs in a corporate world.

On the other hand education within high school art is in decline. Many self representing artists do not seek higher education. What if someone cannot afford art education?

For a self representing artist, no single institution will be able to provide enough coverage to build your brand.

Problems In The Art Market

There are so many problems in the art market I could write a book on it. A few paragraphs here just cannot capture it. A notable article from entrepreneur.com highlights one of the factors which have historically plagued the art community.

The modern era of information is leading the way to a revolution in the arts but many on top choose to ignore. I will quote here

The art industry has grown by leaps and bounds on the back of exclusion, both financial and cultural.  If you have the financial capital, they will exclude you culturally. If you possess the cultural capital, they will exclude you financially.  People, who possess both these attributes are far and few.  If you want to be a member of this exclusive guild, then, not only must you pay for it through your nose, but also, play by their rules.

Entrepreneur.com

My article “The Death of Guilds” highlights how this same mentality impacts the woodworking community.

The old guild organizations are fading into history. So are art galleries, but it is a slow and painful death.

In recent years I saw an art guild that was trying to get art donated for an auction just to help them survive. So understand the environment you are walking into where you are.

It is necessary for artists today to remember lessons from centuries past. Learn the best locations to sell art locally.

It is unfortunate that too many artists trust the online world alone. There are far more opportunities within local markets than many realize if you network properly.

How an artists finds commissions and clients will often reflect the marketing strategies which they use. The strength of one supports the other.

As an artist you must recognize the limitations of where you are regionally. You then must recognize the limitations of the institutions that surround you in this present world.

It will be up to you to decide how you navigate these waters.

The Online Art Market – What Online Art Platforms Help Or Hurt?

Many artists turn to the online market. This is what Amazon and Etsy with all the other platforms are for right?

At the end of the day you spend more in marketing than you make. After all it costs money to advertise. So you fire up social media without ever asking, do you need to be on social media?

There you put in more hours than you do your artwork. You face dangers to intellectual property rights you never knew existed.

In the meantime you are caught up in price wars not knowing how to price your artwork. It is a lot to endure to still find a dead end.

Each location you try seems like a failure. You generate some activity, a few sales, a few art commissions and then hit a brick wall.

Local shows are tough, guilds want money for booths and participation, you hope to just break even at least.

It is no wonder why artists just feel like giving up. It is easy to become exhausted. Once you feel like giving up, congratulations. It is a good thing. You found all the wrong ways to do things.

These methods taught you something extremely valuable. What you need to do next is critical. The first step is to not give up. If you are ready to get out of the ditch I can help.

Here is your first step to getting noticed as an artist.

Tough Skin in Marketing Art

I was very fortunate. In fact I am far more fortunate than most. Before I became a wood artist, I had a successful business.

This business was mine and mine alone. I learned long ago what it was like to lose and to lose big.

I also learned what a win was and how to build into winning. When I stepped into the art world I had those old scars already deeply ingrained.

It takes experience from getting wounded to know you must keep going when all you see is failure. You learn failure is an event, not a person.

You will lose a lot before you ever win. That is business. Forget art for a moment. This is just how business works.

It does not matter what market you step into. Open a restaurant and see what it takes.

Most take 5 years of struggle and massive debt before they ever turn a dollar in profit. That struggle is why most fail.

Guess what, art is even more difficult. In fact it is so difficult when I discussed doing this with my wife she looked at me like I had lost my mind.

I am not joking. She thought I needed a straight jacket and mental therapy. I know artists are a bit off, yet there were reasons for her concern.

She worked as a professional in marketing her entire adult life. Her position was directly under a CEO of a major corporation.

Believe me she knows her marketing. With this she knew how exponentially difficult it is to survive within the art world having no financial backing.

When we discussed the art market, one of the things that came to the forefront was that any traditional methods that she knew had to be thrown out the window.

Those methods would not work. She understood this for reasons that are far to deep to go into here. At the end of the day you and I do not have the manpower nor the money to power our engine in these traditional ways.

Tough skin is an understatement. Essentially as artists we must redesign our market platform.

Add to this the complexity of the present environment from economics, to health, and geo-political matters, the water gets really deep and fast.

So what do you do?

Building An Art Marketing Platform

Do you remember when you attempted to focus on social media? You attempted to try and build a following to sell within.

The guys who promote these ideas are everywhere. Here is an article dedicated to using social media to gain sales.

A lowly artist just doesn’t have enough in the bank, or the manpower to pull this off. It requires a team with a bankroll to do successfully.

It is time to get out of the box. I gave a detailed article on why artists have left Etsy. Even if you have never used them, it is worth the read.

The topics of focus you should pay attention to are the mechanical failures that do not support you. The marketing platform an artist has should build them.

You will need to spend time learning how to develop your own website. WordPress is not that difficult to learn.

You must be your own brand as this will deepen your artistic meaning. You cannot survive under another corporate brand as a mere shop among thousands of others.

Get involved with your local community. Approach private store owners. Teach local art classes. Participate in events to build a network, not sell your art.

You are building your education. Everyone must pay for their education in some way. Nothing is free.

The goal is to find where who you are in personality and your skill set, then match this to a platform which works with you. This can only be achieved with experimentation and careful planning.

I am sorry but there is not prepackaged box labeled success that I can give you. If I could do that, I would be a billionaire.

You must consider this as a marathon. Maybe think of this like climbing Mt Everest. You do not become focused on just one step when running or climbing a mountain.

Your venture in art is a journey. Each step is its own process which leads to the next step. Each step moves you further along that path. This is common sense, but yes it can be painful.

Yet there is a unique synergy that is needed among these steps. Some will try to call this branding with public relations. Others use social media with a lot of personality.

It is a mix, a blend, a composite of who you are… it is not what you do. What you do or the tools you use should reflect who you are.

Forget traditional terms and applications. Lets keep this simple for stupid people like me.

A tree grows with roots. Yes I had to make something about wood here in this article. The point remains. It does not grow with one root. It has many. The roots start shallow and then deepen as the tree grows.

The roots provide a unique synergy which allow for the tree to grow. So should your marketing platform as an artist.

Developing Strategy For Selling Art

If you are new this may it take some exploration. For those who have tried and failed you are in a better position.

Look back and find first what methods you enjoyed doing. What did not feel like work in your marketing attempts? Once you identify this thing, that is your first step up the mountain. More often than not success is a result of doing what you love to do.

Why then do people work jobs? I have no idea. Maybe because they never did what they loved to do long enough with a real strategy?

Go back to the basics and work to stand out with creative ideas as an artist. Begin doing those things you enjoy.

Social media, ad writing and posting, blogging, YouTube videos, local community involvement, art shows, small local galleries, hosting events through event planning, whatever those things are, do them.

Above all else you must know why you do what you do. Love what you do and define your art. It is about you, not selling art.

Part of the synergy process is making who you are unique. To be unique you must be you. In other words your personality must shine through. Who you are must shine through.

People do not buy just because they like something. They also engage and buy for the experience you give them. They see that you are just like them. You are a real person. They get to know you.

Of all the cheapest viable options for public relations, it doesn’t get any better. Yet here comes the second step.

Begin to do those things that are not as much fun. Make a routine that is balanced between your time and efforts. Do not pour your time and energy into a single path. Remember the tree has many roots. It is about more than one.

Artist Who Take The Next Step In Self Promotion

Let’s just pretend we are talking for a moment. First I do not want you quit.

Keep going no matter what. Remember earlier I stated how traditional methods had to be thrown out of the window.

Also I stated how organizations are struggling such as art guilds. There is a fundamental breakdown of traditional platforms.

We the artists must redefine our platform.

Let me rephrase this. We must recreate our platform together. No one out there will save us. Period.

They, the whatever institution, cannot save us. They are going broke.

We must look to what infrastructure we have available to us in order to recreate our community. Artists can only do this together with each other.

Allow me to use an old idea to build a picture in your mind. Do you remember the concept behind Facebook?

Once upon a time it was called The Social Network. It was the first. Today places like this exist on different platforms and we all use at least one.

But we need to network in a new way. Artists need to reach beyond this.

The greatest platform in the world presently is Google. No other giant can compare. So here are the beginning tools.

A website, an online shopping cart that you own NOT an Etsy, and some form of social media. Just one will work to start with. You need real web presence.

Next comes the network. Remember earlier how I stated to go back to basics? I told you to begin doing what you enjoyed doing so that your personality can shine through? There. Its that!

You network with that. Make friends. Cross link from your website and socials to genuine partners and friends.

You are worried about competing against other artist? Do you realize how many searches take place on Google?

Please hear me, you will not survive on an island alone. Period.

You can choose to accept that, or die professionally because of it. That is your choice. We the artists must save ourselves.

To save ourselves we must redefine our art community from top to bottom without the need of institutions or organizations. They are not flexible enough.

They do not cover enough ground. They lack the needed presence to get our work seen beyond their borders.

Like my wife who spent her life in marketing said, all the old ways must go out the window. The old model is breaking down too quickly.

One person at a time we connect. We build. We promote and collaborate. That is the only way.

We are utilizing the Google engine together to reshape its results away from the giants of marketing such as Amazon and Etsy to what Google really wants.

What does Google want? Real content. Original authorship. Original works with detailed images. We create our community inside of the network giants for us and each other.